Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: eronald on July 09, 2015, 06:25:11 pm

Title: An interesting photographic problem
Post by: eronald on July 09, 2015, 06:25:11 pm

Seen in the street (S6 Edge photo).
How would one go about photographing this thing properly?
It looks like a CGI model :)

Edmund

Title: Re: An interesting photographic problem
Post by: george2787 on July 09, 2015, 06:37:13 pm

In a big black studio and armed with patience ;D

Title: Re: An interesting photographic problem
Post by: Hank Keeton on July 10, 2015, 01:14:56 am

You did pretty damn-well.....!!

Title: Re: An interesting photographic problem
Post by: haplo602 on July 10, 2015, 03:21:53 am

I have seen a similar car (same surface finish) a few times and each time I had to look a few times to make sure it is real. The car looks strange, like made of glass.

Basically you can do the same as any other shiny metal object. Define the shape by reflections.

I am with the dark studio suggestion :) Colored paper and a few lights can do crazy stuff with this kind of subject.

Title: Re: An interesting photographic problem
Post by: Chris Livsey on July 10, 2015, 04:00:10 am

https://www.calphoto.co.uk/product/K-Line-Dulling-Spray-Matte/193-290C

Not what you had in mind I suspect  ;)

Title: Re: An interesting photographic problem
Post by: gazwas on July 10, 2015, 06:11:24 am

I'd ask Marty McFly but you'd probably need 1.21 gigawatts.

Title: Re: An interesting photographic problem
Post by: Bart_van_der_Wolf on July 10, 2015, 08:21:28 am

Quote from: eronald on July 09, 2015, 06:25:11 pm

Seen in the street (S6 Edge photo).
How would one go about photographing this thing properly?
It looks like a CGI model :)

Other than a proper HDRI shot on site, the commercial approach would indeed be via a CGI model of the car and a sILB ( smart Image Based Lighting (http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/index.html)) enabled rendering engine. A choice of sILBs can then be used, for different user/location presentations.

Shooting the car in a controlled light studio only gets you that far, but it would still require realistic scene reflections to bring out the design goals. Much more efficient to do it as CGI and with sILB rendering.

Cheers,
Bart

Title: Re: An interesting photographic problem
Post by: dchew on July 10, 2015, 11:02:16 am

Don't forget to first get to know your subject before photographing it. I suspect driving it for at least 200km at various speeds should do.

 ;)

Title: Re: An interesting photographic problem
Post by: tochnia on July 10, 2015, 12:34:29 pm

You can see 12 photos of such cars done by appointment for Mercedes here: http://wallpapers.mi9.com/wallpapers/mercedes-benz-chrome-body-collection_3391/

This one is my favorite:

(http://imgs.mi9.com/uploads/car/3391/mercedes-benz-chrome-body-collection_1600x1200_53436.jpg)

There was article how photographer was just driving in this country road /I think in France/ and decide this is good location and reflections obviously :)

Title: Re: An interesting photographic problem
Post by: SecondFocus on July 10, 2015, 04:21:15 pm

Interesting! Just last week I saw an all "chrome" new Corvette. I thought it was pretty amazing!